We are one, We are many, We are Just Call Me Frank.
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Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Critical Reflections on When Science Meets Religion - Part 2 of 5

Spring break is [finally] over. Let's just say, most of us cannot wait until graduation. (after next Spring Semester *fingers crosses*) - for so many reasons. For example...a completed second degree (in the last 10 years, at least 6 of them have been spent in higher education) and the potential for higher income, more time for (recreational) reading and writing,
Not to mention, we're planning on moving west...to the edge.
Anyway, extensive winter weather, impotent culture and staying in one place for long periods has never been conducive to this wayward existence. It makes parts of the brain itchy.

While the final "grade" will not be received until tomorrow night for this...(let's be honest +s and -s are not grades by conventional standards) [update as of 3/26 : this got a "++" - an above high standards mark]...what follows is part of a series in a University class we're taking (<- click here for 1 of 5 to get context) about truth and reality. Come on. It'll be fun!)

In the three interpretations of
quantum uncertainties, Heisenberg’s theory of indeterminacy principle was more
logical and attractive, particularly because it supports the concept of free
will. As theoretical physics Micho Kaku says of the indeterminacy principle, it
supports the notion that “no one can determine your future events given your
past history. There’s always the wild card. There’s always the possibility of
uncertainty in whatever we do”. Barbour states
that if we set the world back to point A, it would not necessarily end up at
the previously actualized Z, because the potentiality of different events would
change the course. (69) This seems like a good support for the concept of free
will.

The conflict between religion and
indeterminacy seems unnecessary. In a concept that supposes that everything is
up to chance, there is room for “God-given” freedom, whereas in the deterministic
concept, that says everything is preordained, there is no room for making your
own choices and therefor no room to exercise the freedom purported by
theologians. Again, even when scientific principles can get along with
religious ones, religion has to argue about it. At the end, it’s just utter
ridiculousness in the first place, because what some are arguing to defend is
some “divine purpose” that comes down to being nothing more than creation for
the sake of worship.

In the independence of science and
religion, Barbour’s stance on Bohr’s Complimentary Principle models of
phenomena that the concept is acceptable as long as “they refer to the same
entity and are of the same logical type” (77) makes complete sense. For
instance, one cannot compare a dog and a banana, though one might say that the
molecules that make up the dog and the banana can be compared. On a logical
level, it is hard to understand why anybody would argue for something so
restraining in the scientific world. In addition, Complimentary Principle seems
limited in that it insinuates that we can only choose between two things.
Something can only be this or that,
when in fact, it is possible for something to be this and that. Of course, if something could be both this and that, then inferred support for
dialogue and integration in science and religion occurs, despite the different
purposes they serve.

The idea
that something is not real until observed and/or recorded, as asserted by
Wheeler in his “observer-created universe” theory, (79) while it could support
a theory for a non-existent God almost appears preposterous. However, it
actually brought to mind that philosophical question-turned-idiom, “If a tree
falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” , to
which one might ask, if you’re not in the forest and you hear a tree fall, was
it a tree that fell.

Staune’s
supposition that quantum physics “cannot” fully explain reality (83) completely
ignores the potentiality of it, that it can’t explain it yet, he doesn’t even assume that the possibility is there, just
that because it can’t it opens up the
dialogue for the existence of God. Had countless scientists came to this same
conclusion, that because one field of science could not explain the thing it
was attempting to explain now…“then
God”, science would be nowhere. In this dialectic approach there is no need to
continue attempts of discovery.

Western religions are not
compatible with the integration of science and religion; their concepts are too
rigid and unyielding. While Eastern religions may be more compatible, Barbour
seems to present enough evidence to imply it would not be wholly compatible.
(84-85) There can be no discussion of Western religion without addressing God. The
Judeo Christian concept of God is that of a being which created the universe,
has the ability to intervene and manipulate its creation (even though s/he/it clearly doesn’t), and has grand design for
life. If they can shed the man-invented fantasy that humans were formed in the
image of “their God”, and remove that level of egotism from the notion of a
“divine being”, they are then free to look to concepts in quantum physics for a
more realistic structure. The quantum
atom of quantum theory, which is “inaccessible to direct observation and
unimaginable in terms of everyday properties” (67) brings to mind a concept of
a God (not to be confused with Higgs
Boson) that is far more realistic that a single being. Acceptance of such a
theory and stripping away the man-designated name and image of “God”, would be
the only way in which to integrate science and Western religion. Removing the
personhood and supposed aspects in the concept of God, given that all things
are made up of atoms, we can acknowledge that God is not a thing, but everything,
worthy of admiration, respect and discovery, not praise and obedience. In this,
then, can science and religion be integrated.